1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to network systems.
2. Related Art
Network systems are commonly used to move network information (may also be referred to interchangeably, as frames, packets or commands) between computing systems (for example, servers) or between computing systems and network devices (for example, storage systems). Various industry standards, hardware and software components are used to implement network communication, including network switches.
Infiniband (“IB”) is one such industry standard used with computing systems and input/output (I/O) devices. IB is used to create fabrics that are complex networks, which may encompass hundreds and even thousands of interconnected hosts/switches/servers, all working in parallel to solve complex problems.
Configuring virtual fabrics is a challenge. Typically, when a user configures a virtual fabric, the user provides configuration parameters for partitions, Quality of Service (QOS) and routing. QOS is used to configure service levels for a network link. Partitions are created so that only authorized systems/devices within a fabric are allowed to communicate with each other. Routing configuration is used to route packets between two nodes, based on a routing table. These configuration parameters are provided separately to a subnet manager.
QOS configuration, partition and routing configuration all occur independently of each other. The subnet manager (SM) analyzes the fabric topology and computes uniform routing for the paths, uniform partitions for the servers and uniform QOS for links between nodes. This uniformity may result in routes that are not desirable by the user. Continuous efforts are being made to improve virtual fabric configuration.